


Shorts (and Determination)

by MaryPSue



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Monster Falls, Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), Alternate Universe - X-Men Fusion, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Major Character Undeath, Monsters, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-06-18 09:29:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 14,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15482757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: Short GF fics and drabbles that didn't warrant their own work. Tags and ratings will be updated as ficlets are added.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble meme I did over on [tumblr](https://marypsue.tumblr.com) \- "give me a character and a monster and I'll write a hundred-word drabble". (I got...a little carried away with some of them. The word limit may not have been strictly adhered to.) 
> 
> The prompt for this one was "Stan + revenant". Big shoutout to [ancientouroboros](https://ancientouroboros.tumblr.com) for her help in brainstorming the revenant design for this fic!

About once a month, the dead of Gravity Falls rose to walk the earth.

It had been terrifying, the first few times Ford experienced it, but quickly devolved into a minor annoyance. By about the fifth or sixth time it happened, Ford had accepted it into his routine. The diner served a cheesesteak dinner every other Thursday, the paper came on Saturday mornings, the Northwests held their summer celebrity nuisance-fest every year, and once a month there was a zombie uprising.

Apart from the few memorable incidents where Ford had been obliged to throw together an antidote for an unfortunate townsperson with a chunk bitten out of them, the dead had started to blend into the background of everyday life in Gravity Falls. In fact, the regular zombie uprisings had become so mundane that Ford had almost forgotten about them.

He definitely remembered now.

It was his own fault for losing track of time, Ford scolded himself as he hurried through the undergrowth. He’d known the full moon was coming, known that paranormal activity picked up with increased lunar influence, known that they were close to due for another graveyard-break. He just hadn’t realised  _how_  close, and now here he was, caught unprepared out in the woods without even his trusty boom box slash flamethrower. If he didn’t make it back to the Institute of Oddology alive, hopefully Fiddleford would be able to restrain him long enough to put the antidote together. And hopefully the blood would still be fresh enough to rinse out of his clothes.

“What a nuisance!” Ford muttered to himself, breaking right to avoid the fissure of green light and the unearthly moans that burst through the trees to his left. He didn’t slow down, though – the crunch and crackle of the undead horde crashing through the woods behind him was getting louder. “What – is the  _purpose_  – of having a shambling horde of corpses – pour out of the earth – every month?”

An enormous fallen tree loomed in his path, but Ford didn’t break stride, bracing both palms against the trunk and vaulting over it. He thought, for a moment, as his feet struck ground, that he was clear – but then he tried to take a step forward, and was hauled up short by a sharp yank around his arms. Ford spun, as best he could, to see the tail of his overcoat snagged on a jutting branch.

“ _Oh_ , for -” Ford snapped, tugging on the fabric. “Excellent. And now I’ve ruined another garment. What a  _fantastic_  night this has turned out to be.”

With one final yank, Ford’s coat tore free of the branch. He could hear the thick fabric tear, but didn’t have time to spare to check how bad the damage was. The eerie green glow pouring between the trees back in the direction he’d come threw huge shadows of the advancing dead against the fog, great outstretched arms reaching out to grasp him and drag him back.

They were closing in. Ford cursed under his breath. If he got bit again, Fiddleford would never let him hear the end of it –

Ford turned to run, and froze.

The stinking, decayed corpses of three former residents of Gravity Falls leered back at him as they shuffled out of the trees. Between the three of them, they had almost enough parts to make up one whole human. One whole, extremely ugly human.

Ford took one stumbling step backwards, the backs of his legs hitting the tree trunk. Maybe the zombies hadn’t seen him – or scented him? They seemed to have about one intact eyeball between the three of them, a grotesquerie that reminded Ford sharply and absurdly of Greek mythology. Fitting. He’d outwitted a phoney muse, only to be devoured by ersatz Fates. How – well, ‘ironic’ wasn’t the correct term…

The leading zombie opened its desiccated mouth and let out a triumphant groan, reaching out for Ford. Ford shrank back against the fallen tree behind him. He could hear the shambling hordes crashing through the undergrowth towards him, drawing ever closer. There would be no escape the way he’d come.

Ford squeezed his eyes shut, huffing out a long, exasperated breath. Well, hopefully Fiddleford still had some of some of last month’s antidote somewhere in the Institute’s stores. Maybe, if he could retain enough focus, he’d be able to test his hypothesis about the relative desirability of brains based on intellect…

There were a series of short, sharp sounds, like the  _snap_  of dry tree branches underfoot, the  _thud_  of heavy footfalls.

The shuffling, the groaning and moaning, stopped abruptly. The silence that flowed in to fill the space they left behind was thick and somehow more ominous than the noise of the advancing hordes had been.

Ford dared to crack one eye open.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to see, once he opened his eyes. Perhaps a fallen tree? Possibly Boyish – or had the ‘Manly’ caught on, yet? Poor Dan had been trying so hard to spread it – Dan Corduroy with an axe or Shandra Jimenez with a boom box? Maybe poor Susan Wentworth, bitten  _again_  trying to get all of her cats out of reach of the undead.

Whatever he was expecting to see, it certainly wasn’t what met his gaze when he opened his eyes.

The zombies lay on the needle-carpeted ground, skulls smashed, limbs scattered, greenish ooze slowly soaking into the earth. Ford almost didn’t recognise the figure standing in their midst, at first. He seemed…bleached, somehow, drained of colour, even his long, once-dark hair prematurely greyed, as though someone had dumped an entire bag of flour over his head and let it settle in. In places, Ford could swear he could see the bone glowing through his unnaturally pale skin, bluish-white and ghostly.

But it was the eyes that caught Ford’s gaze, and held it, even as the roar of the approaching dead behind him grew louder. Irises such a pale blue-white they almost blended with the whites around them, marred by the sharp black pinprick of the pupil, not the milky-white of the zombies pursuing Ford but a piercing, mournful, intelligent, and above all  _living_  stare.

“Stanley…?” Ford breathed, and his brother – his brother’s ghost? – raised his head, revealing a livid red mark marring the ghastly pallor of his throat. It looked, Ford thought, with a bitter sinking feeling, like it had been made with a rope. “What – what are you doing here? Where have you been? Did you hide my Journal? What – what  _happened_  to you? How -”

Slowly, ponderously, as though each movement required an enormous effort of both strength and concentration, Stan raised a hand to his mouth and gestured. Lips zipped. The motion gave Ford a better glimpse of that horrible crimson mark on Stan’s throat, and Ford couldn’t help an involuntary shudder.

“If you’ve been bitten,” he started, and then couldn’t seem to think of a way to finish the sentence. If Stan had been bitten, then Stan would be right there with the other zombies trying to devour him, not saving his life. If Stan had been bitten, he would be cracking his usual terrible puns, only most of them would now be about brains. If Stan had been bitten, his eyes would be shrouded with the milky-white film of death, not bright and sad and fixed, unblinking, on Ford.

He didn’t blink. Tesla and Sagan, didn’t he ever  _blink_?

“Come with me,” Ford said, finally, reaching out and grasping Stan by the wrist. Part of him expected it all to have been a trap, for Stan to lunge forward and bite a chunk out of Ford’s skull as soon as he was within reach. Part of him expected his hand to simply pass through.

But Stan was solid enough, though the chill of his flesh made Ford’s skin crawl.

“Come with me,” Ford repeated, and Stan nodded dumb agreement. It was strange, Ford decided, not to hear Stanley crack a joke, make a bitter comment, even just utter his signature blather. Strange, and  _wrong_. Perhaps it was this wrongness that made him so polite, that made him bite his tongue. “Please. Maybe – We might be able to help you.”

A wry grin slowly stretched across Stan’s pallid face, grotesque and horrible, not reaching his eyes. He met Ford’s gaze, and then, slowly, deliberately, shook his head.

 _No_.

“No, you won’t come, or no, I can’t help you?”

Stan just shook his head again.  _No_.

Ford squeezed Stan’s wrist, gripped by a sudden, irrational terror that had nothing to do with the animated corpses even now lurching towards him. “Come with me anyway.”

Stan’s shoulders shook in a soundless laugh, but he let Ford drag him along.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble meme I did over on [tumblr](https://marypsue.tumblr.com) \- "give me a character and a monster and I'll write a hundred-word drabble". (I got...a little carried away with some of them. The word limit may not have been strictly adhered to.) 
> 
> The prompt for this one was "Ford + leprecorn".

“It’s not funny, Stanley!”

Stan tries to smother his cackles. Sort of. Okay, not really. Actually, not at all. But who could blame him? Ford is…

“Would  _I_  be laughing at  _you_  if  _you_  were suddenly transformed into an unholy abomination against both gods and good taste?”

“Probably,” Stan says, honestly. Ford’s little tail flicks in indignation, and he gives his terrifyingly human head a dismissive toss. It would probably be a more devastating insult if Ford weren’t currently less than four feet high and didn’t have a freakishly adorable little horse butt. With a shamrock tattoo on it. 

“Can you just -” Ford twitches his front hooves like he’s trying to reach up and adjust his glasses, but just remembered his legs don’t bend that way. With a sigh, his head droops forward. “Can you at least help me do something about this  _beard_? It itches.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble meme I did over on [tumblr](https://marypsue.tumblr.com) \- "give me a character and a monster and I'll write a hundred-word drabble". (I got...a little carried away with some of them. The word limit may not have been strictly adhered to.)
> 
> The prompt for this one was "Mabel + bakeneko".

“Mabel, have you seen -” Dipper said, as he walked into the attic room, and stopped dead. 

The… _thing_ …on the floor froze, too, before slowly leaning forward, to rest its front paws on the floor. It miauwed, and sat back on its haunches, raising a hind leg in the air and beginning to lick itself between surreptitious glances at Dipper.

Dipper was not fooled.

“Mabel, why does that cat have a napkin on its head?” he asked. “And was it… _dancing_?”

Mabel beamed. 

“Dipper, meet Mr. Bubbles!” she said, leaning over and scooping the cat up in both arms. It protested loudly, but Mabel ignored it. “He’s a demon monster cat from Japan and my new best friend!”

“Um,” Dipper said. “How does Waddles feel about that?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble meme I did over on [tumblr](https://marypsue.tumblr.com) \- "give me a character and a monster and I'll write a hundred-word drabble". (I got...a little carried away with some of them. The word limit may not have been strictly adhered to.) 
> 
> The prompt for this one was "Mabel + some kind of cat thing (maybe a sphinx?)". I put it in the Monsterfalls AU because why not.

Ford turns the corner and leaps backwards, yowling, wings flared and tail up. It takes him a moment to get his breathing under control, to quiet the screaming panic filling his head.

He inches forward, extending a cautious paw, and bats at the long green thing that had scared him so badly. The green thing spins, and Ford’s tail fluffs up as he skitters backwards again.

Muffled laughter makes his ears prick up, and Mabel’s friends appear around the corner, dragging the wagon with Mabel’s tank. “Hah! Told you!” Mabel shouts triumphantly, tail slapping. “ _All_  cats are scared of cucumbers!”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble meme I did over on [tumblr](https://marypsue.tumblr.com) \- "give me a character and a monster and I'll write a hundred-word drabble". 
> 
> The prompt for this one was "Fiddleford + Kill Billy".

“Don’t you go makin’ any sudden moves, there,” Fiddleford warns. He doesn’t need to. Ford had frozen the moment the figures had hamboned their way out of the shadows to surround him. 

“Why aren’t -” he starts, but stops abruptly at the ominous sound of banjo strings being plucked. 

“Why ain’t they attackin’ me?” Fiddleford says, finishing Ford’s thought for him. His smile is wide and gleaming, though that’s less due to sparkling enamel and more due to gold teeth. “Ain’t it obvious? They’ve adopted me as one of their pack!“ 

He slaps a knee, and the kill billies hambone back.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble meme I did over on [tumblr](https://marypsue.tumblr.com) \- "give me a character and a monster and I'll write a hundred-word drabble". (I got...a little carried away with some of them. The word limit may not have been strictly adhered to.)
> 
> The prompt for this one was "Stan + gorgon". It went into the Monsterfalls AU as well because why not.

There was a grinding noise, and Stan froze.

“No!” Dipper yelled, as Mabel wailed, “Grunkle Stan!” 

Pacifica pressed both hands over her face, snake-hair coiling agitatedly. “I didn’t mean to!”

Mabel stared in horror at her grunkle. Stan was perfectly still, and grey, and - 

Stan’s arm ripped free from his rock cocoon. A second later, it shattered as his wings punched out. Mabel nearly flopped out of her fishtank to hug him.

“Grunkle Stan, you’re okay!”

“You bet, sweetie.” Stan smirked. “ _Can’t_  turn a gargoyle into stone. Pay up, kid.”

Dipper groaned, but pulled a five from his saddlebag.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble meme I did over on tumblr - "give me a character and a monster and I'll write a hundred-word drabble". (I got...a little carried away with some of them. The word limit may not have been strictly adhered to.)
> 
> The prompt for this one was "Ford + werewolf".

For a moment, Ford is frozen, unable even to dodge the enormous paw that swipes at him. Black claws long as his forearm shred his sweater, drawing lines of fire across his chest. He stumbles back, falling to the ground, and stares up at the snarling beast, certain that this is the end.

“Grunkle Stan!”

Ford starts to his feet, ready to pull Mabel away, but there’s no need. The instant the beast sees her, it backs down, sitting back on its haunches and lowering its head, almost as if…ashamed?

“He didn’t want to tell you,” Mabel says, apologetically, turning to meet Ford’s eyes even as she scratches the beast behind one of its floppy ears. “He thought you’d be mad.”

Ford stares, astonished, at the beast. The beast raises its head, just slightly, just enough for him to meet its eyes.

His  _brother’s_  eyes.

“Oh, Stanley,” Ford sighs, collapsing to his knees. “What kind of mess did you get yourself into  _this_  time?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble meme I did over on tumblr - "give me a character and a monster and I'll write a hundred-word drabble". 
> 
> The prompt for this one was "Stanford Pines + banshee".

“I  _know_  it’s a banshee, Stanford! What I’d like ta know is what the consarned thing’s doin’ on our roof!”

Ford waved the broom threateningly in the banshee’s direction. She gave a short shriek, and hopped awkwardly further along the roof, out of reach. “I wish I knew! Go on, scram!”

One desiccated hand reached from under the banshee’s white robe, a single finger extended. The blackened nail stabbed directly at Ford’s heart, and the banshee let out a long, mournful wail.

Ford swatted her hand with the broom.

“Shoo!” he yelled. “Get!”

The banshee huffed, and rolled her eyes.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble meme I did over on tumblr - "give me a character and a monster and I'll write a hundred-word drabble". 
> 
> The prompt for this one was "Mabel + anything unseelie".

“Mabel, just because it’s a pretty magic horse doesn’t mean it’s friendly!”

“I know that,” Mabel says, rolling her eyes. The kelpie rolls its eyes, too, slit-pupils wheeling madly in its green horse-face. “Did you think I didn’t learn  _any_ thing from the unicorns?”

Dipper’s clicking his pen like he wants to click his thumb off. Mabel ignores him. The kelpie’s sniffing at the handful of dried seaweed Mabel’s holding out,  _finally_.

“Why are you trying to bring a kelpie home, anyway?” Dipper asks, and Mabel smiles to herself, thinking of the fancy show-jumping competition Pacifica’s been bragging about. 

“You’ll see!”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble meme I did over on [tumblr](https://marypsue.tumblr.com) \- "give me a character and a monster and I'll write a hundred-word drabble".
> 
> The prompt for this one was "Mabel + siren". (With a side order of "I wanted to say the fishman from Shape of Water but that seemed too obvious".)

“…and he’s got these  _eyes_ , they’re so big and cute!”

The bird-lady looks like she’s starting to reconsider calling Mabel to her rock in the middle of the lake. Dipper doesn’t actually feel a sliver of sympathy for her. You try to lure Mabel Pines to drown, you deserve to get an earful about the Crush of the Week. 

Plus, it’s giving him a great opportunity to get some good pictures.  

“And sometimes his gills go out when he’s curious, and he looks like a fluffy cat!” Mabel presses her hands to the sides of her own face, and sighs. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An alternate ending to my fic [Now You See](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8134141). Not any happier than the first ending.

The portal flares brilliant white.

Stan breathes out, long and slow. He hadn’t known what the hell he was getting into, when he’d first laid eyes on 618 Gopher Road, Gravity Falls, and in a way he still feels out of his depth, but - he’s done it. Took him long enough to figure out how to get the damn thing working from those weird-ass books Ford left behind, but it doesn’t matter. It’s working now.

A shadow appears in the middle of the ring of light, and Stan throws up a hand to shade his eyes, trying to see through the glare. Slowly, slowly - Stan realises he’s holding his breath - the shadow resolves itself into a figure. A human figure. Slumped forward, leaning heavily on one side of the portal’s ring - 

Stan charges forward before he can stop to think, and is just in time to catch Ford as he topples from the portal’s central ring. 

For a moment, there’s no sound except the harsh saw of Stan’s breathing and the mechanical whirr of the portal. Ford is unnaturally still and silent, a limp, heavy, dead weight in Stan’s arms. He smells absolutely  _awful_ , and Stan can’t believe that that’s what he notices at a time like this. 

Then Ford lets out a quiet groan, and shifts in Stan’s arms. Stan lets out the breath he’s been holding, long and soft and low, and gently lets himself sink to his knees.

It takes him a moment to realise that there’s blood left streaking his clothes where Ford had been lying. 

Before Stan has a chance to panic, though, Ford blinks, twisting to look up at him. For a moment, he seems confused, and then a slow, dawning horror overtakes his face, a horror that Stan knows must be the mirror of his own expression. Ford’s face is - it looks like  _ground beef_ , the whole right side of his face is covered in these pockmarks anywhere from the size of a pinhead to the size of a marble, and all of them are leaking blood, what the hell  _happened_  to him - 

“Stanley?” Ford whispers, his voice hoarse. “No. No, no, this has to be a trick, you can’t be -”

“It’s me,” Stan manages, fighting down bile. “It’s me, Ford. I’m here. I got you back. You’re safe.”

Instead of the reassurance Stan had meant to give, though, Ford seems more panicked than ever. One of his hands tightens on Stan’s sleeve, before slipping away, and Stan realises it’s because Ford’s palm is slick with more blood. More weeping sores peep from under the brown-crusted sleeve of his dirty trenchcoat. “No! You can’t - how did you even know I was here? It should have been safe! You all should have been safe!”

“Know you were here? Poindexter, you’re not makin’ any sense,” Stan says. The urge to vomit is still there, but he’s managing to swallow it down, focus first on Ford’s injuries, how he can help his brother. He’s learned a thing or two in the last ten years about ignoring pain and fear to do what needs doing. It’s just a little different when it’s his own twin brother in pain and bleeding. “You sent for me, remember? I got your postcard. The one you sent asking me for help?”

Ford stares up at Stan without blinking, his eyes wide, but the horror behind them is slowly beginning to shift, to wither. 

It takes Stan entirely too long to understand that it’s changing to despair.

“I didn’t send you a postcard,” Ford says, hollowly. “I didn’t send for anyone at all.”

It takes Stan a moment to realise what he’s seeing in the reflection in the cracked lenses of Ford’s glasses, just what it is that’s blotting out the still-whirling ring of white light overhead.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A non-canonical post-canon scene from my fic [Raising Stakes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5271431/chapters/12163670).

They’d been a week on the water before it really became a problem.

The tropics, it turned out, suited Stan just fine. Better than fine, actually. Sure, the days were long, but the nights were hot (and sultry, whatever that meant, but every time he said it Ford went red from ears to collarbone, so Stan made a point to say it as often as possible). He hadn’t felt so warm in - years. Since he’d been run outta New Mexico, at least. His poor cold, dead bones were getting warmed right down to the marrow.

And there was only one little problem with that.

Ford stepped up onto the deck, pausing at the top of the stairs to plant his hands on his hips and throw back his head, sucking in a deep, theatrical breath. “Aah, smell that fresh sea ai-”

He stopped, mid-sentence, gagging as though he’d just choked on his own tongue. “ _What_  is that fetid stench? Smells like something  _died_  up h-”

He caught Stan’s unimpressed glare, and his mouth snapped shut, eyes narrowing.

“Nah, poindexter, you were saying?” Stan asked, conversationally, adjusting the line he’d slung over the side. Fish were pretty bloodless, but Ford still needed to eat, and besides, it was relaxing.

“Either you march straight below and shower or I am going to throw you overboard,” Ford said.

“Like to see you try,” Stan said, kicking his feet up on the railing and turning back to his fishing. “ ’s not like it’s gonna help, anyway. You’re the one who decided to drag a corpse to the equator with no refrigeration.”

He did his best to ignore the silence from Ford’s direction.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Ford said, finally.

“What? Fish? I mean, I guess it don’t exactly help with the smell -”

“Try to make me regret my decision,” Ford argued, just like Stan had hoped he wouldn’t.

“I told you, nerd, if I coulda got outta this undead thing the way you did, I woulda.” Stan gave the line a tug, but the nibble he thought he’d felt vanished as soon as it had appeared. “No hard feelings.”

“‘No hard’ -” Ford shook his head, pushing up his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “Stanley, that’s not what I meant!”

“Then what didja mean?” Stan asked. Really, nothing was biting. At all.

“Trying to make me regret deciding to take this voyage with you!”

Stan carefully propped the fishing pole against the railing before turning to face Ford. Ford’s fists clenched and unclenched, but his gaze stayed steady.

“Do you?” Stan asked, and Ford threw both hands into the air, turning around like he couldn’t face Stan’s stupidity.

“If I didn’t want to follow our childhood dream with you, then I wouldn’t  _be_  here, would I?”

“Well, you might, if you felt guilty enough about me savin’ your hide and you not bein’ able to turn me back,” Stan said. “It’s okay, Si- poindexter. You don’t gotta stick your neck out this far for me, I was doin’ just fine before Gravity Falls and I’ll keep on doin’ just fine -”

“You told me you were living in your car,” Ford said grimly.

Stan hid a wince behind a shrug, waving the comment aside. “Like I said. I was doin’ just  _fine_ , Ford. I can take care of myself. An’ if this whole trip ain’t nothin’ but a pity date, then we might as well turn around now, because I sure as hell don’t need your  _pity_!”

Ford took a step back, both hands raised with the palms out, like he was trying to hold Stan back, and Stan realised he’d pushed himself up out of the deckchair with enough force to collapse it. He took a step back, himself, and started fussing with the deckchair, all too aware of the familiar heavy prickle of fangs against his jaw.

“All I’m sayin’ is, you got a good life back there,” he said, half to himself, half to the deckchair that now didn’t seem to want to unfold. “Got yourself a house, a town fulla mostly harmless weirdos, some cushy grants and a fancy college degree. Don’t be stupid enough to go throwin’ it all away on my account.” The chair’s back made a high, metallic scream as Stan wrenched it open. “I already ruined your life once. We’re even.”

“Is that what this is about?” Ford asked, his voice curiously soft - or, well, as soft as either of their voices got.

“Is what what what is about,” Stan asked, mulishly, popping the deckchair’s seat back into place.

“Why you’ve been so…contrary,” Ford said, clearly choosing his words with care. “Since we set out. I would have thought you’d be happy to undertake a voyage like this, but if you’re labouring under the misapprehension that I’m here out of some misplaced sense of obligation -”

“English, poindexter,” Stan growled.

“Stan, I -” Behind Stan, Ford huffed out a breath. Stan checked his fishing pole, but it still wasn’t straining. No bites yet.

“I was - foolish,” Ford said, finally, heavily. “And I made a great many mistakes, and - dammit, Stan, I made a mess of my life in Gravity Falls the same way I made a mess of my relationship with you, and I was  _hoping_  - perhaps delusionally - that this could be a second chance. That  _you_  would give me a second chance. But apparently, in the ten years we’ve been apart, your capacity for holding grudges has only increased exponentially!”

“Yeah, always was good at that,” Stan muttered, and then his brain seemed to catch up with his ears. “Wait, what?”

“You want me to say it? All right, I’ll say it,” Ford huffed. “I’m - I made a mistake, all those years ago. I was a young, arrogant idiot, and I had no idea what could be waiting for you out there, and that still doesn’t make what I did right. Still doesn’t make  _abandoning_  you right.”

“I told you, Sixer, we’re even,” Stan said dully, flopping into the newly-reinstated deckchair with a groan. The warmth of the tropics was wonderful, but damn if the fading sunlight didn’t still make his joints ache. “You don’t gotta splash out on this big extravagant voyage just to make it up to me.”

“I’m not trying to make it up to you, you dolt! I’m  _trying_  to apologise to you!”

In the sudden silence, there was a  _twang_  as Stan’s fishing line snapped taut. Neither twin paid it any attention.

“Did it ever occur to you that we might both have grown up, a little, in the ten years we were apart? Or that I might miss my twin brother?” Ford thundered, waving his arms around as he ranted at the impossibly blue sky overhead. “That I might actually  _want_  to spend time with you? That maybe the fact that my brother  _died_  out on the streets has made me appreciate having another chance to do this the right way this time? That maybe I genuinely want to help you, because no one deserves to live the way you’ve been living? That -”

“All right, all right, I get it!” Stan interrupted. “This is all outta the goodness of your own heart, got it -”

“It’s out of the selfishness of my own heart! I’m doing this as much for myself as I am for you, can you get that through your thick skull?” Ford raved, then shut his mouth at the look on Stan’s face. “Oh. I…suppose the first step on the road to better brotherhood is not insulting your brother’s intelligence, isn’t it?”

“It’d be a start,” Stan said, drily. 

Ford sucked in a deep breath, puffing out his chest, and then sagged, seeming to deflate. “I just - perhaps selfishly - want another chance. Stanley, I want to try again.” He coughed into his hand, a bitter chuckle emerging at the end of it. “See if we’re actually doomed to hate each other for the rest of our lives. Maybe it’s not the most noble of reasons to invite you on a voyage like this, but -”

“Are you kidding?” Stan scoffed. “I can’t think of a better one.”

That seemed to finally shut Ford up. Instead of a clever comeback, all he gave Stan was a small, grateful smile.

“Oh!” he said, just in time to save Stan from doing something truly sappy like hugging his brother or crying. “Stan, I think you’ve got a bite!”

“What?” Stan spun around, to see his fishing line pulled tight and quivering under the strain. “Holy crap, whatever that is, it’s big -”

He grabbed the pole out of the railing and was almost instantly yanked overboard. Ford’s arms closed around his middle just in time, and they braced themselves against the railing, the fishing pole jerking and shaking in Stan’s hands.

“Don’t let go!” Ford yelled, apparently overcome with nerd excitement, as a shimmering tentacle burst out of the water a little ways ahead of them and flailed madly through the air before splashing back down. “Stan, you may have hooked a juvenile kraken, don’t you dare let go -”

Despite himself, Stan felt a smile creeping across his face. He tightened his grip on the fishing pole, and hauled back on the line.

…

“Wow. The fish smell really does not help,” Stan admitted, several hours later, standing in the middle of the deck and dripping slime.

“I take it back. Either we  _both_  get below and showered, or I’m throwing both of us overboard,” Ford groused, carefully unsticking his arm from his side and watching the goo stretch out into long, stringy tendrils with a mournful expression.

Stan clapped an arm over his brother’s shoulders with a horrible squelch. “Well, at least now we’re even.”

He slipped in the slime coating the deck when Ford shoved him, and had just enough time to savour the way Ford’s smug grin turned into shock and horror as Stan dragged him down into the puddle of fishy ooze after him.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a drabble meme I did over on [tumblr](https://marypsue.tumblr.com) \- "give me a character and a monster and I'll write a hundred-word drabble". (I got...a little carried away with some of them. The word limit may not have been strictly adhered to.)
> 
> This prompt was "Henry (from the Transcendence AU) + monster of your choice".

“Henry? Hon?” Mabel leans over the edge of the bed, her hair flopping down onto the floor as she pulls up the cover, her upside-down smile as big and as bright as it is right-side up. “What’re you doing down there?”

Henry lets out a sigh. “I’m stuck.”

“What?” Mabel’s face disappears, hair streaming upwards like a pennant, and then her feet land on the rug by Henry’s nose. Seconds later, her face is back, right side up this time, her chin leaning on her elbows as she lies flat on her stomach. “Oh.”

Henry nods miserably. Or, rather, tries to. The impressive rack of antlers sprouting from his head and caught up in the underside of the bedframe make it a little difficult.

Mabel stifles a giggle in one hand. “You should see yourself!”

“I’m just a pair of spooky glowing eyes in the dark, aren’t I,” Henry says gloomily. “Hank ran away screaming when I asked him to help pull me out.”

“Is  _that_  what that was all about?” Mabel teases. “He just said there was a monster under the bed.”

“It’s not funny,” Henry mutters, even though he’s having trouble keeping the corners of his own mouth from twitching upwards. Mabel’s smile is infectious like that. “Would you please help me out of here?”

Several minutes of tugging and yanking and creative swearing later, Henry and Mabel both have to admit that as long as his antlers are corporeal, Henry’s not going anywhere.

“That’s okay, though,” Mabel announces, in that tone of voice she gets when she’s made up her mind and nothing, come hell or high water, will keep her from her goal. “Budge over.”

“Ow - Mabel, what -”

“Shush! And move your bony elbows.”

With Mabel cuddled up next to him, Henry has to admit, being stuck as the monster under the bed isn’t all bad. 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 'deleted scene' from [Raising Stakes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5271431/chapters/12163670).

When Stanley Pines was ten years old, he’d gotten lost under the boardwalk.

He doesn’t know, now, how he got lost. Especially not under the boardwalk. In those days, Stan and his twin brother Ford were inseparable. Couldn’t be more different, of course, but you couldn’t pry them apart with a crowbar. And they were fearless explorers. Every inch of the boardwalk, they knew by heart, knew where Crampelter and his friends liked to hang around, where the older kids went to smoke out of sight, where to find the best sea glass and sometimes cool junk that washed up out of the sea. Once, Ford found an old sneaker with an actual, human foot in it. Once, Stan found a rubber duck.

Glass Shard Beach may have had plenty of rotted-out, boarded-up boat shacks and portions of pier to swallow kids whole, down into the dark and the silence, only to be found again once they’d decayed away to a sad little pile of salt-bleached bones. If they were found at all. But Stan and Ford, the dynamic duo, they were never alone. And if one of them fell through a rotted-out pier, or got lost in the pilings, the other could run for help or lead them back. They could always show each other the way home.

So it doesn’t make sense that Stan can be lost. In the dark. Alone.

…

When Stanley Pines was fifteen years old, he’d broken his shoulder and nose in a boxing match.

Well. He didn’t break them. His opponent broke them, and gave him a concussion for good measure. The world hadn’t stopped spinning for a week. It had taken a while, even with all the pain, for Stan to start feeling like he was really inside his own body again.

But there, again, was Ford. Ford holding up fingers in front of Stan’s face, asking how many were there. Ford pressing ice against Stan’s swollen nose, wincing in sympathy at the hissed breath Stan sucked in between his teeth. Ford quietly reading the homework aloud to Stan when his eyes wouldn’t focus on the page and the letters kept slithering and sliding around. 

So it doesn’t make sense for Stan to be in pain, and confused, and  _alone_.

…

A car trunk. They’d thrown him in a fucking  _car trunk_ , like some kind of gangster movie, or maybe some kind of joke, and left him there, like baggage, like dead weight. It’s dark, and there’s an agonizing tearing pain in his chest, but it’s nothing to the one in his gut, and the world is unreal and spinning around him, and the trunk latch tears like wet paper under his teeth and there’s copper in his mouth and he can’t remember or understand, now, how he got there.

…

When Stanley Pines was nearly nineteen, he got killed in an alley and chucked in a dumpster.

He’d been lost, then, too.

…

The thing that wakes up, that rips its way out of the trunk of the Cadillac, isn’t Stanley Pines. Not exactly. 

Or maybe that’s all it is. Just Stanley Pines, or what’s left of him once you strip away everything and everyone that lifted him up and bandaged his wounds and led him home, out of the dark. Just Stanley Pines, with a sluggishly-bleeding bullet hole in his chest and a ravenous, burning hunger in his insides and nothing to stop him.

The pain - in his jaw as he chews through the trunk latch, in his fist as he punches through the windshield, in his shoulder and his chest and his neck where bullets bite uselessly in - doesn’t seem real. The others don’t seem real. Their screaming doesn’t seem real. The world is washed in concussion colours, the only real thing in it the warm, sweet brightness of blood.

He isn’t even aware that the Cadillac has crashed until a set of headlights and a blaring horn sweep past inches from its nose. The keys are still in the ignition. There’s nothing moving inside the car.

The last little bit of stolen warmth bleeds out of him as he looks around, sees what he’s done. 

Knows, without a sliver of remorse, that he’d do it again. 

Stanley Pines is forever trapped on the cusp of nineteen, and he’s lost, in the dark. 

Alone.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A cut scene from [Any Misery You Choose](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7311880/chapters/16607296).

So, Ford’s big plan has failed  ~~again~~  and once again  ~~it’s all Stanley’s fault~~  he’s humiliated, stuck sitting in the back of a truck that’s little better than a cattle car in nothing but his underwear with both hands bound behind his back, wishing he knew just which of the Fates he’d pissed off so royally that he deserves to be punished like this, over and over and  _over_  again. 

He wishes he were angry. He’s trying really hard to be angry, at  ~~his brother~~  the idiot he somehow shares his DNA with, at the government, at people in general, at the whole grand sweep of history and its constant, ceaseless exaltation of the ignorant, the small-minded, the cruel. He’s trying to be so angry that he doesn’t have room for  ~~the bitter taste of fear that freezes his back teeth~~    ~~the crushing weight of knowledge and of defeat~~    ~~the silver lance of painful, impossible hope~~  anything else.

It’s not working. Yet. But it will.

So,  ~~Stan’s still unconscious~~  Ford’s the only one awake back here, with the exception of the men with guns, and  ~~he doesn’t know if Stan’s going to wake up, it feels like he himself has been sitting here watching his twin’s too-shallow breathing for an eternity~~  his head is still throbbing something fierce, it’s difficult to think straight, and  ~~Stan’s just like him, Stan’s a mutant too and thank Tesla their father never found out and Ford’s theory about twins with x-gene mutations is proving true and how interesting that his and Stan’s powers have manifested as polar opposites and if they ever get out of this alive he’s going to have to~~  it’s times like these when Ford wishes he could just stop thinking.

He shifts uncomfortably against the wall of the truck bed, and four heavily-armed men tense, four assault rifles fixing back on his head. Ford tries not to sigh.

There’s a draft through the badly-sealed back doors, and his tee shirt and boxers aren’t exactly great protection from the elements. Ford wishes, absently, that he had his spaceship sweater with him.

~~He wishes, so sharp and sudden that it’s physically painful, that he had his mother with him, to hold him and tell him everything will be all right -~~

Stan stirs, for the first time since they’d been tossed unceremoniously in here, and Ford snaps abruptly back to reality.  ~~His brother~~  Stan tosses his head, like he’s having a bad dream, one arm flopping out to smack against Ford’s knees. It’s a weak, feeble blow, but it brings another wave of lead-dull resentment pounding down on Ford’s head. If Stan had just  _listened_  - if he’d just let Ford explain, if he hadn’t been so  _stupid_  -

~~If Ford had just listened, nearly a year ago, if he’d just let Stan explain - what would Stan have said? Would it have made anything better?~~

~~Would it have made things _worse_?~~

Stan blinks, blearily, squinting up at Ford. For an instant, his gaze is open, unguarded, alight with hope so bright that Ford’s eyes sting. “Sixer? Wh- what’re you doin’ here?” His eyes sink shut again, and he tips his head back to thunk against the cold metal grating that makes up the floor. “Y'r s'posed t'be at nerd school, not sleepin’ on park benches like y'r loser bro.”

It’s only then that Ford realises  ~~his broth~~ Stan isn’t really awake. Hasn’t quite made it back to reality yet.

“Stanley, you’re dreaming,” he snaps, intending to spur Stan’s memory to recall where he is, what’s going on - but instead, when that unabashed hope fades off of Stan’s face and his expression closes off again, he doesn’t express disappointment in their capture or their current place of confinement or anything else that would make sense.

“Figures,” Stan mutters, instead, and his eyes slip back closed as he turns his back on Ford, curling in close around himself. “You’d never really come out here lookin’ f’r a screw-up like me anyway.”

For the first time in a long time, Ford can’t find a single word to say.

Instead, he looks back at the armed men sitting along the opposite wall, the jerks and bumps of the truck’s tires rattling over rough gravel setting their gear bouncing in a way that would almost be comical if not for the bleakness of the situation Ford now finds himself in. Two of them are wearing goggles, two of them aren’t, but the pairs of eyes he can see look just as shuttered as the hidden ones.

“Hey.”

Ford glances down. Stan’s frowning sleepily up at him, like he’s trying to puzzle out a particularly difficult equation. “Yes?”

Stan blinks, slowly, first one eye and then the other. “If ’m dreamin’ you…”

He doesn’t say anything more, letting the sentence fade. For a moment, Ford thinks he’s fallen back asleep. And then -

“Y'don’ hate me, right?” Stan’s voice says, very quiet, from somewhere around Ford’s knee.

The truck rattles around them.

Ford’s automatic reaction is ‘of course not, don’t be absurd’, but - does he? Sure, things have worked out for him - or had been working out for him, up until now - but that doesn’t change the fact that Stan had deliberately, selfishly sabotaged Ford’s one chance at the school, the  _life_ , he’d wanted, the life that’s now forever out of his reach, and ruined things for both of them. Neither of them would be here if Stan hadn’t - if he’d just -

But then - the thought is there, and for the first time, Ford finds himself wondering. Could Stan have known? Could he, possibly, have foreseen what Ford himself hadn’t, ~~have known about their powers and what would happen to Ford if he’d made it into West Coast Tech and _then_  been revealed as a mutant and a fraud? There’s no way he could have been trying to protect - ~~

No. This is ridiculous. It was ridiculous when Stanley was protesting that the whole thing was an accident, and it’s ridiculous now. Ford is ashamed at his own attempts to justify  ~~his brother~~  Stanley’s bad behaviour, to have even let the thought into his head. Stan acted out of pure self-interest, pure jealousy, too scared of letting Ford outshine him to let Ford have a chance to shine at all. Anything Stan’s gone through, anything he’s suffering now - Stan has no one to blame for any of it but himself. This is only what he deserves, for being so - selfish. Self-absorbed. Heartless. Two-faced. Stupid. Trusting. He brought it on himself. He brought it all on himself, with his - his stupid fat face with its oversized grins and  ~~his vacant look of disbelief when his duffel bag landed at his feet~~  his neediness his clinginess the way he used to follow Ford around like a lost puppy, like Ford’s shadow,  ~~like a friend~~  and drag Ford into all kinds of trouble  ~~when the trouble wasn’t Ford’s fault to begin with, and get them both out of it again more often than not~~ , and pick fights  ~~with the bullies when they got on Ford’s case~~ , and Ford’s been  ~~cut in half~~  better off without him.

But -

“No,” Ford manages, when he finally feels he can trust his voice again. “No, Stan, I don’t - I don’t hate you.”

A small smile curls across Stan’s face, but vanishes as soon as it appears. “Just wish real Ford didn’t, either.”

There’s no way Ford can respond to that. He sits back, in silence, as the truck bounces over potholes and rough gravel, letting his bones and teeth clatter together with every bump.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt: "young Stan making some of his firsts fake attractions for the recently open Mystery Shack??"

Stan picked up the skeleton in the Hawaiian shirt by the wrist. It dangled pathetically, rattling slightly when he dropped it.

He glanced up at the door, at the hand-painted sign saying ‘Murder Hut’, then back at the pile of plastic (at least, he hoped they were plastic) bones tangled in a heap at his feet.

Shit, if he was gonna make people pay to see this dump, he was gonna have to step up his game.

His first thought was something out of that stupid book Ford had given him, but Stan couldn’t bring himself to even crack the cover. Looking around at the things in jars and things that went ‘whirr’ and blinked and the photographs pinned to the walls, he realised he couldn’t display any of this anyway. Maybe Ford deserved to have a little fun poked at his nerd dungeon, but…not now. And not by strangers. 

Stan grunted, and rolled up his sleeves. 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you just want to wrap your favourite characters up in a blanket and sit them down and stuff them full of hot chocolate and marshmallows and watch corny, heartfelt sci-fi with them. And then sometimes you realise you’re an artist or writer and, hey, you kind of _can_.

She was expecting to see the cats when she opened the garage door, crowded around their empty dishes, making pitiful noises and complaining of the unnatural emptiness of their food bowls. And the cats were there, miauing and purring like two tiny, fluffy V8 engines - but it wasn’t the food bowls they were milling around, but the feet of the strange man standing on her doorstep.

She managed to swallow the scream that clawed its way up her throat. The man was crouched down, scritching behind the ears of the fat ginger tabby and cooing soft, rumbling words in answer to the cat’s explosive purr. He didn’t seem to have noticed her yet. Maybe she could still shut the door and lock it and run inside and call the police and -

Her train of thought abruptly derailed as the stranger shifted his hand to let the cat rub its fuzzy face along his palm, and she realised that hand had six working fingers.

The grey tabby cocked its head to one side, noticing her for the first time, and gave out the loud, insistent ‘mrrrrrlp’ that meant 'hello, our dishes are empty, rectify this immediately’. The stranger looked up, and froze. She was pretty sure she was already frozen herself, but she felt certain she’d managed to freeze all over again. They stayed like that for a long moment, neither daring to move, her breath stuck in her lungs.

The orange tabby, not delighted about the sudden absence of ear scritches, gave a loud miau and shoved its head against the stranger’s palm. The stranger visibly let out a breath, absently stroking the ginger tabby’s head as he reached warily into his long black overcoat with his other, also six-fingered hand, not taking his eyes from hers. The grey tabby, apparently upset at being left out, 'prrpt'ed and wandered over to rub itself against her legs. She didn’t dare reach down to give it a pet, not when, if the stranger was really who she thought he was (and he couldn’t possibly be, but), he was probably reaching for something that could blast her into the next dimension. Possibly literally.

“Um,” she said.

No sooner was the word out of her mouth than she was staring down the cold cyan-glowing barrel of a triangular gun. “Holy shit,” she breathed, taking a wary step backwards.

“What kind of universe is this?” the stranger demanded, in a gravely voice she’d last heard moments before, on her TV, selling insurance. Or - close enough.

“That - that is a  _really good_  cosplay,” she managed, at last, when her mouth started to work again. “But, uh, sorry, the statue’s nowhere near here. And uh, you’re a couple days late.”

She gently pushed the gun away from her face, glaring down at the cats to avoid obviously staring at the stranger’s square jaw and the steely eyes (now widening in disbelief) just visible under his goggles. It really was an eerily good likeness. Had to be latex. “Some watchdogs you two are.”

The cats appeared unrepentant. The orange tabby sniffed at its food dish. The grey tabby looked her dead in the eyes, and began to wash its front paw.

“A…what?” the stranger asked, and some of the menace had been replaced by confusion, though she noticed he didn’t lower the gun. “No, this is an MK IV delta-grade atomic destabiliser, which no sane person should be casually pushing aside as though it were a water gun unless they’re very sure of their ability to withstand the scrambling of every atom in their head.” He seemed to pull himself together by the end of the sentence, regaining his grasp on…whatever he thought was going on.

“No, like - cosplay?” He looked maybe a little older than middle-aged, so maybe - maybe the term just wasn’t familiar, though that was a damn good costume for someone who was out of touch enough with the nerd community that he wasn’t familiar with the word 'cosplay’… "Like…people who wear Federation uniforms and pointy ears to Star Trek conventions?“ she tried, only to be met with another blank look. "Oh, come on, there’s no way you don’t know Star Trek. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise? Her five-year mission: to seek out new life, new civilisations? To boldly go -”

“- where no man has gone before,” the stranger finished, slowly reaching up to push his goggles to the top of his head. She could swear her heart stuttered. It really wasn’t fair for someone to look that much like a cartoon character brought to life. She was already getting all kinds of stupid, impossible ideas. “But it’s the Starship Endeavour. And I don’t know what you mean by 'star trek’, that’s clearly the opening narration - though mangled, although I suppose that’s to be expected - from the groundbreaking science fiction series 'Space Odyssey’.”

“What? No, that’s the movie, with the obelisks -”

“You mean '2001: A Star Trek’?”

“What?”

“What?”

She was the first to break the confused silence. “Okay, this is ridiculous. Are you -” Halfway through the question her brain threw up a forest of red flags. If it was really him, then she’d never be able to explain herself, and he’d just assume she’d seen his name on a wanted poster and was planning to turn him over to Bill. At best, she’d make an ass of herself asking whether the clearly living, breathing person in front of her was actually a fictional character. “Hungry. Are you hungry? The cats are and I’m gonna feed them but then you’re welcome to come in and have something to eat.”

The stranger’s look was still wary, but he finally, finally lowered the gun. “I - yes, I would appreciate that.” He paused, and added, sounding worried, “It…is food for carbon-based lifeforms, isn’t it?”

She had to bite her tongue. “Yes. Definitely.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Transcendence AU, again. From a prompt: "Headcanon: a Pines a long way down the line decides to get themselves tested by a Mage to see if they're a reincarnated soul. They find out their last incarnation was Filbrick and are disgusted/worried because they don't want to have anything in common with someone that horrible."

“- so I had to buy my own Mother’s Day present, as usual.”

The circle of women perched on cream-coloured sofas and artfully blanket-draped armchairs around the living room all groaned in sympathy, save for one.

“Well, I thought ahead this year. Planned it all myself and just sent Tanner in to pay.” The speaker leaned forward conspiratorially, and the other women leaned in too, wineglasses tilting dangerously, a captive audience. “I’m going to a  _psychic_. Getting my past lives read.”

There were oohs and coos from all around the circle, and the speaker sat back, triumphant, only for a short huff from the other side of the circle to interrupt her moment in the spotlight. “What is it, Helen?“ 

A hush fell under the vaulted ceiling of the living room as the entire circle turned to face Helen, seated in the good armchair nearest the fireplace. The circular arrangement should have meant that no one woman was in a position of authority compared to the others, but the way every eye turned cautiously to the impassive look on Helen’s unnaturally-taut face said it all. 

Helen took a long sip from her glass of red wine before answering, every eye following her hand as she lowered the glass. The sharp  _clink_  as she set it on the glass top of the coffee table rang in the quiet.

“I wouldn’t waste my time on that,” Helen said, like a queen issuing a  proclamation, and every woman around the circle exhaled. Helen reached over to pluck an olive from the cheese platter before settling back into her armchair, as movement stated back up around her. “I made Grant send me once. Colossal waste of money. This woman tried to tell me I’d been some man with a name like a bricked-up treehouse and had the nerve to imply - based entirely on these so-called past lives she claimed to have seen - that  _I_  might be mistreating my own children.”

The reaction was instant and scandalised.

“No!”

“She  _didn’t_.”

Helen gave a nod that somehow managed to convey both graceful, martyred resignation and righteous indignation. “As though I haven’t given those two everything - my time, my youth, my figure, my sanity - or what was left of it, anyway -”

The room exploded into raucous laughter, Helen herself cracking a smile as she reached over to the cheese plate again. She paused, though, with her arm outstretched, looking over at the staircase against the far wall. “What are you two doing down here?”

Standing on the stairs, the older girl - who couldn’t have been much older than thirteen - squeezed the younger’s shoulder protectively. “Nina wanted a glass of water.”

“Well, that’s what you have an ensuite bathroom for, isn’t it?” Helen shook her head. “Really, how many times do I have to tell you? Book club is Mommy’s me-time. It’s the only time when Mommy doesn’t have to be a mommy. Would you like to have to run around after a couple of little kids all the time, and never get a break?”

The younger girl’s shoulders hunched, and the older girl started, defensively, “Nina -”

“Look, is there something the matter with Carmelita?” Helen asked, shortly, and the older girl flushed. “No? Then why don’t you go bother her instead? I’ll come up and say goodnight when we’re done here.”

The older girl didn’t move, just stared hard-eyed down into the living room for a few seconds before leaning down to whisper something to the smaller girl. The smaller girl nodded, putting a hand in the older girl’s as the older girl gently steered her back up the stairs.

Helen shook her head, shifting her attention back to the cheese platter. “Honestly.” She took a few more olives, and settled back into her armchair throne. “But yes, Janet, I’d advise you to have Tanner save his money and go for a nice spa day or a massage instead. I was  _not_  impressed with that psychic. Now, those customisable charm lockets Monica was talking about…”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this not long after the finale.

Mabel’s the one who first figures out that, since Stan’s memories are still spotty and Ford was lost in a rift between dimensions while it was airing, technically neither of them have ever seen the entire series of  _Ducktective_. 

She sets up a marathon. There are snacks for days. There’s - not a pillow fort, a pillow  _castle_. There are badge-shaped cookies. There are deerstalker hats. There are episode bingo cards. Mabel knits each of them brand-new sweaters with a different quote on each.

Stan calls most of the plot twists before they happen - no one’s quite sure if it’s because he remembers any given episode or because he’s just clever or lucky, and Stan isn’t giving anything away. Ford would’ve had the secret twin reveal half a season ahead of time, if he hadn’t started second-guessing his deductions after the ‘McCluckit is the author of the threatening notes’ hoax. 

By the time the final episode airs, the entire Pines family (and all its honorary members) are conked out in a heap of pillows, blankets, and sweaters. No one sees how it all ends. 

Which is okay. It just means they’ll have to do this again sometime.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this one _immediately_ after the finale.

So, the thing about the way the memory gun works is this:

In order to erase something, you have to name it.

(Fiddleford found this out, to his detriment, too late. To be able to erase something, you must first be able to name it.)

So, the thing about naming things is this:

Language is imperfect. Language is a poor attempt to capture what dances on the neurons and gives itself airs, playing at being an objective, outside truth. Language doesn’t just name. Everything language names, it makes.

So, the thing about erasing a mind is this:

The name that six shaking fingers dial into the little screen, glowing green type stark against the black, square and immutable, could have been one of many. There is a box full of names in the depths of an office he could have chosen from. There is the constant crowdpleaser in his smart suit and incongruous eyepatch, a touch of danger, a touch of deception, Mr. Mystery with his showman’s smile and arms spread wide. There is the reluctant acceptance of authority, responsibility, in the stiff formality of Mr. Pines, the name that was never quite the one the speaker wanted to say, never quite the one the listener never admitted he wanted to hear. There is the well-meaning duplicity and uncomfortable duplication in the use of the name of the man holding the gun.

There is the childish nickname of one short, glorious summer.

But it’s none of these that the other Stanford Pines dials into the memory gun. Instead, it’s the name of the brother from his childhood, the brother who once wronged him so unforgivably, the brother who, he now sees, he himself has wronged. The name his brother hasn’t used in thirty long years, thirty years which have been, even with all things considered, the best thirty years of his life.

And when he pulls the trigger, Ford erases Bill Cipher - and Stanley Pines.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An AU of an AU ([Raising Stakes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5271431), to be precise), featuring [Seiya234](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seiya234/pseuds/Seiya234)'s OC Henry from the Transcendence AU. Confused yet?

The door to the shack bangs open without warning, letting in a gust of howling wind, a flurry of white flakes, and a tall, menacing shape all in black. “Stan!” Henry Forrest Pines Junior, Master of Portland, Don of the Dinner Crew, demands of the dark old house, its creaking crumbling walls and floor, its pervasive smell of age. “Where the  _hell_  are you?”

From the living room, his great-great-uncle snaps, “Shut the damn door, willya? You’re letting in the cold. And quit yelling, I ain’t deaf yet.”

Hank slams the door, with a boom that shakes the house to its foundations.

“Sheesh, kid, rein it in,” Stan says, as Hank storms into the doorway of the living room and stops, glowering as if his gaze could light the small room on fire.

“ _Rein it in?”_  Hank slams a fist into the doorframe, which wobbles alarmingly overtop of him. “Where were you?”

“Where was I when?” Stan asks, not taking his eyes from the television. “You’re gonna have to be more specific. And quit breakin’ my house, it ain’t like I have a handyman around anymore.”

Hank slowly lifts his hand from the doorframe. His voice is quieter, but no less intense, when he says, “Stan. Where were you when we were all at the funeral?”

Stan doesn’t answer right away, and the silence settles in like years, heavy and smothering. He doesn’t look away from the television set, doesn’t move from his slouch in the ancient easy chair set up in front of the set. The corpse-light from the screen casts a bluish pallor over Stan’s motionless face, and for a moment, Hank is struck with the knowledge that he’s looking at a dead man.

A burst of canned laughter explodes from the speakers, Stan fumbles for the remote, and the spell is broken. Stan kills the sound, but not the picture, still lit in flickering blue as he half-turns to face his great-great nephew. “Why do you care?”

“Why do I -” Hank starts, and can’t find the end of the sentence. He doesn’t stutter long before Stan interrupts.

“Yeah. Why do you care if I turned up to the funeral? Mabel doesn’t.”

“How could you -”

“She’s  _dead_ , kiddo. You think she gives a shit about anything?”

Hank can’t manage a single word through the storm of screams jammed in his throat.

Stan sighs, shifting in the old plaid chair so he can scratch his back. He moves like an old man, an unfathomably old man, no matter how young he looks. “I know, kid. Come on. Lemme have it if it’ll make you feel better.”

Hank sucks in a deep breath he doesn’t need, runs a hand through his fiery hair, lets the breath out slowly. “No. No, it won’t. My mother is dead and you didn’t even come to see her buried.”

Stan snorts. 

“What?” Hank demands. 

Stan shakes his head. “You’ll get it when you’re older.”

The laughter comes unexpected, bubbling up uncontrollably. Stan actually turns to look at Hank again when it comes spilling out, raising an eyebrow. Hank shakes his head. takes another deep breath, waiting to speak until the giggles die away. “You are so full of it, old man.”

Stan barks out a laugh of his own, gesturing with one hand toward the kitchen. “Got it in one. Go grab yourself a beer, I’ve already doctored the ones in the cooler.”

Hank nods, but doesn’t move. Finally, he half-turns, but he doesn’t start towards the kitchen. Instead, he asks, “Why didn’t you come?”

Stan takes a long draught of his own beer, staring at the television screen.

“Seen enough death for two lifetimes,” he says, finally. 

“She was your family,” Hank argues. Stan fixes him with a look.

“You lost one of your sisters yet?”

“What? Of course not, you know -”

Stan turns back to the television. “You will.” He tips the bottle back, peering at it. “Grab me another beer when you get yourself one, kid.”

Hank lingers another moment in the doorway, before he turns, and leaves the room.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt: 'Pacifica Northwest, "Everybody thinks that we're perfect/please don't let them/look through the curtains".'

“I wish  _I_  was going to the grand opening of the new Austrian embassy,” Mabel sighed, as she wove Pacifica’s blonde locks into a creative approximation of a French braid; “You met that Marius guy at your parents’ party, right? Whoof! If all the Austrians are like that, well, sign me up for koalas and kangaroos!”

“You know that’s Australia, not Austria, right?” Pacifica asked, unable to hold back the fondness in her voice; truth be told, she wouldn’t trade this time at the Mystery Shack, Mabel’s more-enthusiastic-than-elegant makeovers, greasy, cheap pizza, and  _Dream Boy High 2: The Boyfriend Swap_  for a thousand grand opening galas, with their uptight VIPs, uncomfortable gowns, and the constant, assessing gaze of her parents, ensuring she never put a toe out of line or a syllable out of place.

Onscreen, Jazmyn pulled off the blonde wig she’d been wearing to pretend to be her best friend Azora and revealed herself in front of the soulful, glittery aquamarine eyes of Azora’s hunky boyfriend, and a thought struck Pacifica; “Mabel,” she said, slowly, “how would you like to go to the gala instead of me?”


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one in the extremely squishy post-canon of [Raising Stakes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5271431). An earlier version, when I still wasn't sure whether I was going to let Ford get lost through the portal.

“Mabel, seriously, there’s something really weird going on with Uncle Stan - look, you know Dad says he spent time up here when he was a kid, and he says he remembers Stan being about the same age as  _his_  dad, and that was how long ago? And I don’t actually think he sleeps at all, and have you ever seen him eat anything -”

“Dipper, you won’t eat Uncle Stan’s cooking either.”

“Yeah, but that’s because it’s disgusting and probably not fit for human consumption, not because I’m the undead!”

Stan bit down on his lip to keep from bursting out laughing as he pulled the pan out of the oven. His great-nephew was smart - almost too smart for his own good - and sometimes it was almost painfully familiar. And then, sometimes, it was hilarious.

He poked his head out around the kitchen doorframe and yelled, “Kids? Who wants garlic bread?”

The look on Dipper’s face was one that Stan knew he’d remember for a long, long time.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt: "Tad meets Xanthar (The giant purple bread loaf)?" I couldn't resist the obvious.

Gravity Falls was as strange as its reputation suggested - no glow clouds, the only mysterious hooded figure he’d run into had turned out to be a surly teenager in a black hoodie sulking in an empty grave, and no sign of any kind of secret police anywhere - and Tad had taken full advantage of the odd little town’s lenient policies on wheat and wheat by-products to indulge his sole, secret vice.

He’d been disappointed, though not really all that surprised, when the sky had torn open and the twisted monsters from realms beyond human comprehension had come spilling forth to rain fire and havoc on the town - after all, it was a Thursday. He hadn’t thought much of it until the giant, purple loaf on legs had turned its featureless face in his direction; he’d felt its eyeless gaze fix on the slice of bread in his upraised hand, and understood, with the sudden clarity of those who understand too late, why Night Vale had banned wheat and wheat by-products in the first place.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Transcendence AU again - prompt "something with Henry or the triplets?"

It wasn’t all magic and adventure and weirdness and life-or-death stakes; sometimes it was just lying around in the living room (which, though small, was always somehow just big enough for everyone to feel comfortable, even when it was holding seven Pines, Soos the honorary Pines, Candy, Grenda, Grenda’s slightly shellshocked-looking but smiling boyfriend, Candy’s arsenal, a loudly complaining Pacifica, Wendy hogging half a couch to herself, and Waddles Junior the Second) watching old episodes of The Price Is Trite and new episodes of Viewer Discretion Advised, depending on whether or not Stan would relinquish the remote and how guilty Mabel was feeling about not being a responsible enough mother that week. 

But life in Gravity Falls - life with his family - would never lose its charm for Henry, its mystery (‘Hank, what are you looking a- oh. Oh, wow, your new friend sure is…slimy’), its adventure (‘Acacia no Acacia sweetheart don’t brING THE FIRECRACKERS INSIDE -’), its danger (‘Will, it’s nice of you to offer and I know you’ll be able to cut around my antlers but, uh, I don’t think I really need a haircut yet’), or, of course, its weirdness ('Henry Henry Henry Henry Henry! Look, I shaved all of our initials into the side of my head! It’s a symbol of our family! Don’t worry, it’ll totally grow out before that speaking thing…ie at that college next week!’).

And Henry wouldn’t have it any other way.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Transcendence AU again.

There was blood mixed in with the glitter in her hair.

Mabel pushed a stray lock back out of her eyes, sticking out her tongue at the goop that coated the back of her hand. Kelpie blood, it turned out, was black, and tarry, and she’d be lucky if she got out of this without having to chop all of her beautiful long hair off.

“Hang on, I’ve almost got you!” she shouted at the terrified boy sitting on the kelpie’s back, clearly sunk far enough into the creature’s flesh that he wouldn’t be getting free on his own. He shot her a wild-eyed look, and Mabel could practically hear the disbelief running through his head. She grinned a little wider, ignoring the kelpie’s snorts and the tossing of its head as it galloped full-speed down the boardwalk, headed for the ocean.

Mabel gritted her teeth, let go of the handlebars of the motorcycle she’d…commandeered, and, in one smooth movement that she’d spent hours practicing with Wendy, pulled the chainsaw from where it was strapped to her back. The boy’s eyes widened, and the kelpie let out a scream that sounded like no horse Mabel had ever heard, although, to be fair, Mabel hadn’t heard that many horses.

“Why is your chainsaw bedazzled?!” the boy screamed, and Mabel frowned as she pulled the cord and the chainsaw roared to life.

“Why is  _that_  your first question?” She carefully balanced herself, and stood up on the motorcycle, nearly knocking it over as she ducked to avoid the kelpie’s attempt to bite her with its decidedly un-horse-like fangs. “Don’t move!”

The end of the boardwalk was speeding towards them. Mabel narrowed her eyes, took aim, and swung.

The chainsaw met brief resistance, and then the kelpie crumpled, minus its head. Mabel flung the chainsaw aside and leapt clear of the motorcycle as it flew off the boardwalk and into the water. She took a deep breath in the instant before she hit the water, with a solid  _smack_  that knocked the breath out of her, like the world’s worst belly flop.

She wondered how big of a splash she’d made.

When she finally managed to drag herself back to the boardwalk, the boy was sitting in a pile of bones and black goop that was slowly seeping through the boards. Mabel scrunched up her nose at the stink of rotting seaweed, reaching down to grab the kelpie’s skull and wrench its front fangs out.

“Th-thanks for saving me,” the boy said, and Mabel blinked, leaning in to get a better look at him. 

“You know how you could really thank me?” She grinned, giving him a broad wink. “Take me out to dinner, handsome.”

“Mabel? I’m…pretty sure that’s not how it went.”

Mabel’s head snapped up, and she shot her dumb demon brother an annoyed look. “Did I ask you to fact-check, mister fancy-pants?”

“No, but you can’t just  _make stuff up_. You weren’t on a motorcycle, you were standing at the end of the pier waiting for it to run by, and you definitely didn’t jump in the ocean while riding a motorcycle and swinging a chainsaw.”

“You have not even been invited to our sleepover extravaganza,” Candy said mildly, adjusting her glasses as she looked up at Dipper. 

“Yeah!” Grenda agreed, a few decibels louder, pounding her fists against the floor in the middle of the circle the three girls had made. “What should we do with the trespasser?”

Mabel grinned. It was not a pleasant grin. “I have an idea.”

Dipper hovered backwards, golden eyes flicking from girl to girl nervously. “Actually, I’m just going to -”

“Oh no, brother dear.  _You_  crashed  _our_  sleepover. Now…” Mabel held up a fistful of cosmetics. “You get to join in the fun!”

Dipper’s screams rattled windows for miles around.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt to the Transcendence AU blog - "April 1st at the Pines household must be similar to an XK-class scenario"

She hadn’t been in Gravity Falls long, but Naima had already been told to ‘expect the unexpected’, whatever  _that_  meant. As far as she was concerned, 'the unexpected’ was to be expected  _everywhere_  these days - she hadn’t used to have to buy gnome repellent for her garden, or sell people buying vacation packages Bermuda Triangle insurance, or any of the thousands of things that had become commonplace in the years after the Incident. Just how much weirder could Gravity Falls  _be_?

“Much, much weirder” turned out to be the answer. Between the cults, the (generally surprisingly friendly) supernatural creatures, the random magical storms, and, of course, the town’s own idiosyncratic calendar of holidays (why did they celebrate Halloween  _twice_  a year?),  Naima had her hands full just trying to adjust. Nobody seemed to want to buy simple vacation packages, either; it was all 'can you get me to Machu Pichu in time for the summer solstice?’ and 'have they opened hotels in that mermaid city yet?’ and 'I need a flight direct to Columbia, like, two hours ago’ (although that was just Stanford Pines, she’d been warned about him and knew what to expect).

After nearly a year in Gravity Falls, though, Naima thought she was finally, _finally_ starting to get a handle on how things worked in the small town. Which was why it came as such a surprise when there was a sudden burst of activity at the travel agency just before April began. Just about every single one of Gravity Falls’ inhabitants seemed to want to be out of town April first. They didn’t seem to care much  _where_  they went, or when their vacations started or ended, just so long as they were out of town before midnight on the first and didn’t come back until midnight on the second. One woman broke down sobbing in front of Naima when Naima mentioned that all flights were booked for that evening, and insisted Naima put her on an earlier flight, even though it meant adding a full week to her vacation. When Naima asked what was so important about being out of town that day, the woman just gave her a haunted look and said, “It’s April Fools’ Day.”

After that encounter, Naima started to wonder whether she shouldn’t make plans to evacuate as well. She shook the feeling off, however, reassuring herself that, even if Gravity Falls  _was_  particularly weird, its inhabitants were also remarkably superstitious, and…she hated to admit it, but…not actually all that bright. It was probably just some local tradition that had been blown out of proportion by time and superstition. She shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

Still, she was extra careful about setting up the wards around her house on the evening of March thirty-first.

By the morning of April second, Naima had already made plans to go visit her dear grandmother in Calcutta for next April Fools’ Day. She hoped halfway around the world was far enough to go to get away.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt from the monster meme: "Ford and vampires". Another [Raising Stakes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5271431) short.

Sitting in a vat, stinking of cinnamon and formaldehyde, his eyes fixed on the pulse jumping in his best friend's throat, Stanford Pines was forced to admit that his cure for undeath may not have entirely worked.

“Yeah, that don’t look like it’s working,” his twin helpfully observed from where he slouched in Ford’s wheeled office chair across the room. “You still seem pretty dead to me.”

“Thank you, Stanley, for that insight I could not possibly have come to on my own,” Ford ground out, between gritted teeth. There was a curious pressure in his jaw which was starting to border on pain, and he really didn’t want to consider the implications too closely. Scientific inquiry was all very well and good, even when the science tried to eat you, but permanent transformation into a creature of the night had not been in his future plans, and, from what Stan had had to say so far, seemed likely to put a serious crimp in his research.

Stan jerked a thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the front door. “I can get Susan back here, offer of blood still stands.”

“ _Thank_  you, Stanley,” Ford muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. It was difficult to tell, with his glasses so displaced, but he thought he caught a glimpse of Fiddleford nodding vigourously in Stan’s direction. “Yes. Definitely. I just can’t wait to sink my teeth into a nice side of vermin. Sounds positively mouthwatering.”

The unfortunate part, Ford tried not to reflect, was that it did.

“Hey now, don’t you go a-badmouthin’ vermin,” Fiddleford said, and Ford decided he didn’t want to know. 

Stan heaved himself up out of the office chair with a long-suffering sigh. Ford hated himself for the way his voice quavered as he demanded, “Where are you going?”

Stan jabbed a thumb in the direction of the door again. “Gonna grab you some grub. Be back in five.”

“I thought I just told you, I’m not interested in -”

“Honestly, I don’t care what you’re interested in right now,” Stan said. “Your stinky bath isn’t working, you’re gonna have to eat something, and I think I’m speakin’ for all of us here when I say I’d like that something to not be Fidds.”

Fiddleford blinked indignantly in Stan’s direction, but Ford didn’t miss the nervous glance he shot back in Ford’s direction. “ ‘Fidds’?”

Stan shrugged.

“Please, Stan, I can take care of myself,” Ford said. “And this ‘stinky bath’, as you so eloquently put it, takes time to work -”

“Yeah?” Stan asked. “How much time? A week? A month?”

“Stanley -” Ford started, but Fiddleford cut him off.

“Nah, Ford, man’s got a point. You were dezombificated by this time last time we hadda use this.” He rubbed the side of his neck, letting his palm rest over the artery pulsing just under the skin. A sudden jab of pain shot through the roof of Ford’s mouth, and he slapped a hand to his lips until it ebbed.

“We can’t give up now!” he said, when he felt brave enough to open his mouth again, aware that he was coming dangerously close to begging.

“Stanford -” Fiddleford started, but Ford cut him off with a flourish, spattering formaldehyde across the study wall. 

“I am  _not_  going to be a - a  _monster_  for the rest of my days!”

Fiddleford crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head as he met Ford’s gaze. Stan took a step back, his expression going shuttered, but Ford didn’t pay either of them any attention. The pain in his jaw was growing worse, the pit of his stomach hollowing out to match it, the stench of the bath stung his nostrils, and there was a threatening wobbly quality to his vision that he didn’t like at all. “I  _won’t_  let him have the satisfaction, do you understand? _I will not let him win_!”

For a moment, the study rang with surprised silence. 

“You’re talkin’ about that Bill guy,” Stan said, at last. 

Ford bit down on his lower lip, nodding stiffly.

“Ford, we banished him,” Stan started, and Ford gestured down at himself.

“And yet, somehow, he still gets the last laugh! One final jest from beyond the grave! I suppose I should just learn to accept that I will never, ever be free of him, is that it?”

“No, you dumbass,” Stan said, taking a deep breath and seeming to unfreeze. “What you  _should_  do is get some damn blood in you before you keel over and fall out of your stinky bath. It ain’t gonna do anybody any good for you to starve while you’re waiting for it to kick in.”

“He’s got a point, Stanford,” Fiddleford said sternly. “Ain’t nobody hurtin’ you now but your own fool self.”

Ford sucked in a breath, ready to argue, and then let it out, slow. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so old.

“All right,” he sighed, sinking down in the tub. “Blood, then. But I’m not getting out.”


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short fic set in the universe of [Any Misery You Choose](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7311880/chapters/16607296), which was a request from [ancientouroboros](https://ancientouroboros.tumblr.com) that I sat on for wayyyyy too long considering how long it ended up being. Hope this is what you wanted!

“So, uh. Nighthawk, huh?”

Nighthawk glances up from his issue of Fingerless Gloves Monthly to glare at Stan. “Yeah?” he says, his eyes narrowing as he searches Stan’s face, probably looking for the trick. Stan can’t blame him. This is too good, he’s probably grinning like a damn crocodile right now and he can’t seem to stop. “What?”

“So, how’d you pick that one out?” Stan asks. “Were you just flipping through a dictionary? See a painting of a bunch of famous people in a diner one day? What?”

Nighthawk studies Stan’s face for another couple of seconds, before obviously giving up on trying to find the trap he’s about to walk into. 

“I dunno, I just heard it somewhere,” he says, turning back to his magazine. “It sounded right, y'know? Like, there’s flying, and then there’s darkness…”

“Hmm. Interesting,” Stan says, leaning against the arm of the couch. “D'you know it’s a real bird?”

Nighthawk glances up from the magazine again, shooting Stan an annoyed stare. “Do I  _look_  like somebody who cares about  _birds_?”

“Hey, don’t stereotype ornithologists, there’s more'n enough reasons to make fun of ‘em already,” Stan says.

He can’t see past the magazine, but Stan’s pretty sure Nighthawk just rolled his eyes.

“Okay, it’s a real bird,” he says. “Is there a point to this lame conversation?”

Stan shrugs, as nonchalantly as he can. “Oh, I dunno. Figured you might wanna know what your dark and edgy namesake’s called in some other languages, maybe.”

“What?” Nighthawk says, and this time, he actually puts the magazine down on his chest.

Stan’s grin gets wider. Nighthawk’s eyes get narrower. 

“Look it up,” Stan says, giving one of Nighthawk’s hightop sneakers a quick pat on the toe before turning and walking away.

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”

…

Nighthawk looks a little sulkier than usual that night, when they’re all stuffing their faces with Thai takeout around the TV, but Stan can’t be sure until he tucks a hand up under his shirt and lets loose with the biggest, best armpit fart he can muster.

Nighthawk’s pad Thai goes flying, and a second later, his hands are around Stan’s throat.

“Holy fuck!” Wendy yells, grabbing Nighthawk by the collar with one hand and hauling him backwards off of Stan. “Okay, what the hell was that about?”

Nighthawk opens his mouth, bristling with righteous indignation - and then, seeing all the eyes turned in his direction, deflates.

“Nothing,” he mutters, eyes on his sneakers. “It was just rude and gross and vulgar.”

“So is ninety percent of everything that goes on around here, dude,” Wendy says. “You can’t just go around choking people out for it.”

“Got it,” Nighthawk grumbles.

The glare he darts in Stan’s direction is pure poison, and Stan’s briefly grateful Nighthawk doesn’t have Tambry’s mutation.

Stan grins back, and blows a raspberry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Anishinabe word for 'nighthawk’ apparently translates best as 'farthawk’, due to the…uh… _distinctive_ sound their wings make when they fly


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one’s for [dubsdeedubs](https://dubsdeedubs.tumblr.com) ([WDW](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WDW)), who requested “Stan + changeling” and kindly allowed me to use any variant on ‘changeling’ that my little black heart desired. And that is the last of the oneshots from that monster meme I posted forever ago! I am not currently taking prompts.

Stan doesn’t say anything, just stares up at the portal.

Ford clears his throat, but Stan doesn't look away. He also...doesn't...blink.

"Whadja say this thing was, again?" he says, hoarsely. Not that Stan's voice is ever  _not_  hoarse, but...there’s something about the way it rasps that makes all the hairs on the back of Ford’s neck stand up, like a metal chair leg dragged across concrete flooring. 

“It’s an interdimensional portal?” Ford says. He doesn’t mean for it to come out like a question. There’s just something about the way Stan asked. It’s almost like he already had an answer in mind, and ‘interdimensional portal’ isn’t the one he was expecting. 

Stan's silent for just a beat too long. And he still hasn't blinked.

“I...” he whispers, eyes still fixed on the portal. “Think I kinda remember something...that looked like this...”

If he says anything else, Ford can’t hear it over the clang of mental alarms. 

“What?” he demands. “What did you just -”

Finally, finally, Stan turns to face Ford, and Ford chokes on his own words.  There’s something – something in Stan’s eyes, something  _about_  Stan’s eyes -

“Ford?” Stan asks, reaching out with one hand, and Ford staggers backwards. For a split second, Stan’s face crumples in hurt, until he follows Ford’s eyes down to his own outstretched hand. 

And the six fingers extending from it. 

It’s Stan’s turn to stumble back, a look of fear spreading across his face as he stares at his own hand, holding it out at arm’s length like he can distance himself from his own body. Ford’s sure his own expression is a mirror of Stan’s. 

“What -” Stan chokes, giving his hand a shake. Ford isn’t expecting much of anything to happen, and it doesn’t look like Stan is either, because his eyes, already wide, go even wider when his hand starts to... _melt_. That out-of-place extra pinkie starts to soften and drip like a lit candle, flesh dribbling down to fuse seamlessly into the side of his hand until it looks like that extra finger was never there at all. 

Both Stan and Ford stare at it in wordless horror for a long moment.

Then Stan looks up at Ford, his eyes wide and frightened, and Ford sucks in a breath. At any other time, he would have said that Stan’s eyes were merely bloodshot, that the reddish tinge cast over them was nothing more than evidence of a lack of sleep and, most likely, some manner of degenerate living. But - Ford’s been paying a lot of attention to people’s eyes, lately. And Stan’s eyes had looked completely normal when he’d walked through Ford’s front door. Also, the human eye doesn’t naturally produce that kind of opalescent sheen.

“What are you,” Ford breathes. His voice seems strangled, knotted up in his chest in the painful tangle that draws tight at the way Stan steps back, looking like he’s been slapped. “You are not my brother. What  _are_  you?”

Stan - the thing impersonating Stan - is still giving Ford that hurt look, like it hasn’t realised that the game is up. Somehow, that, of all things, loosens the knot in Ford’s chest enough for him to find his voice again. “Go running back to your equilateral master and tell him that I won’t fall for his tricks!"

“Ford -” the thing pretending to be Stan rasps, but Ford is shaking with anger now and the quiet plea in the imposter’s voice only stokes the flames of his fury. 

“Get out of my house!”

The imposter looks, for a moment, like it’s going to argue, going to beg, but then its eyes narrow and it pushes past Ford, heading for the elevator.

...

Stan throws himself into the Stanleymobile and slams the door behind him. He leans back in the driver’s seat, breathing hard. It’s only partly from the running he’s just done. 

His skin is crawling. He hopes not literally. He’s too much of a coward to look down and find out.

Something had gone wrong, when he’d looked up at Ford’s weirdo science project and the buzzing fluorescents had caught an oil-slick sheen on its metal surface. Something had cracked inside his head. Now even his own, familiar flesh is strange. 

The familiar driver’s seat of the Stanleymobile is only comforting for a moment or two. And then that crack in his head splinters it. He and the Stanleymobile have been together for nearly his whole life, haven’t they? But - something’s trying to tell him that he’s only had the car since - 

Nevada. 

Stan nearly bashes his head against the steering wheel. Nevada, where he’d been locked inside his own trunk and left to bake to death. Nevada, where he’d found a hiding place, a dark warm enclosed space away from the eyes of his captors. Nevada, where he’d found a helpful template to base an appropriate disguise on.

He remembers chewing his way out of that trunk. For the first time, it occurs to him to wonder whether that would even have been possible to do with human teeth.

He’d needed to know more about the world he’d found himself in, more about how to fit in and go undetected, more about how to operate the motor vehicle he’d found. He’d copied neurological pathways, synaptic connections. He hadn’t expected the structure to hide such a complex consciousness. He hadn’t - hadn’t realised how much it would affect him. How much it would overtake him, how - 

Stan grips his head in both hands, vaguely aware that one of them no longer feels remotely like a hand. It keeps wanting to be something more like a lobster claw. He doesn’t want to let it, but right now, it feels like a losing battle.

An alien. He’s some kind of goddamn shapeshifting alien that tried to pretend to be Stan Pines and got in over its head. Stan Pines - Stan Pines’ corpse is quietly mummifying somewhere in the desert near Area 51. No wonder Rico’s gang had been so mysteriously quiet lately. 

And here he’d thought Ford’s stupid nerd basement was the weirdest thing he was going to have to deal with today.

Stan takes a deep breath.

Okay. First things first. Whether or not Ford’s really his brother, there’s something wrong about that thing in his basement. For one thing, it’s made out of what can only be parts of a spaceship like the one Stan crash-landed all those years ago, and nothing in Stan Pines’ memories indicates that Ford should have known anything about it. For another thing, Ford’s clearly scared of someone - or  _something._  And whatever an interdimensional portal is, it probably shouldn’t fall into the hands of some Rico-type character who intimidates people into getting what they want. 

Either way, it looks like Stan’s going to have to deal with this. 

Stan takes another deep breath, and another. He gives the steering wheel a squeeze, testing that he’s got the right number of fingers and that they all work the way fingers are supposed to. And, of course, focusing on this portal thing will give him something to think about that isn’t himself. Denial’s always worked for him.

Maybe he can make it work a little longer.


End file.
